Obama Seeks $17.7 Billion for NASA to Lasso Asteroid, Explore Space

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NASA unveiled a $17.7 billion spending plan for 2014 today (April
10) that continues major ongoing space exploration projects,
while including funds to kick-start an audacious new mission to
capture a small asteroid and park it near the moon so astronauts
can explore it by 2025.

The proposed NASA budget is part of President Barack Obama's 2014
federal budget request and would restore the U.S. space agency's
funding back near its 2012 levels. The request is about $50
million less than NASA's last budget in 2012, but would restore
deep cuts from sequestration, leaving the agency with a roughly
$1 billion increase from the $16.6 billion spending bill the
agency received for 2013.

NASA's plan to send a robotic spacecraft to
lasso an asteroid and tow it to the moon is a stand-out item
in the 2014 budget request. The goal is to capture an asteroid
and bring it closer to Earth so that a manned mission can explore
the space rock by 2025 — a major U.S. spaceflight goal set by
Obama in 2010. [ NASA's
2014 Budget Explained in Photos ]

"We are developing a first-ever mission to
identify, capture and relocate and asteroid," NASA chief
Charles Bolden said in a statement. "This mission represents an
unprecedented technological feat that will lead to new scientific
discoveries and technological capabilities and help protect our
home planet. This asteroid initiative brings together the best of
NASA’s science, technology and human exploration efforts to
achieve the president’s goal of sending humans to an asteroid by
2025."

How to catch an asteroid

NASA's 2014 budget sets aside a $78 million down payment for
the asteroid-capture mission, as well as additional funds to
search for the candidate space rock for the initial rendezvous
and capture, bringing the total funding for the project to about
$105 million in 2014.

In all, NASA could spend up to $2.6 billion on the
asteroid-capture mission through 2025, according to a study
conducted by scientists with Caltech's Keck Institute for Space
Studies in Pasadena last year. That study reviewed the
feasibility of robotically capturing a 500-ton asteroid about 23
feet (7 meters) wide and placing it in orbit near the moon by
2025.

Bolden said NASA's new mega-rocket, the Space Launch System, and
its
Orion deep-space capsule would be used for the manned
portions of the asteroid capture mission. The agency will also
"develop new technologies like solar electric propulsion and
laser communications -- all critical components of deep space
exploration."

The
Space Launch System and Orion capsule are part of NASA's
Exploration Systems division, which is funded at $2.7 billion in
2014 in the new budget, down from $3 billion in 2012.

In addition to the asteroid mission, NASA's 2014 budget includes
continued funding for the International Space Station, as well as
increased support for private space taxis, which the space agency
plans to rely on to launch American astronauts to the space
station now that its shuttle fleet is retired. Commercial
spaceflight funding in 2014 is pegged at $821.4 million, just
over twice the amount received in 2012.

Planetary science, astrophysics and Earth

NASA's planetary science projects, which took a significant
funding hit last year, would stay at a $1.2 billion level in 2014
(down from $1.5 billion in 2012) under the new budget request.
Astrophysics funding would dip slightly to $642.3 million (down
from $648.4 million in 2012).

Bolden said the planetary science budget will allow NASA to
continue operating its many spacecraft exploring planets across
the solar system, including the flagship Mars rover Curiosity and
its smaller, older cousin Opportunity. Future Mars missions, such
as the Maven orbiter launching later this year, new Insight Mars
lander launching in 2016 and next Mars rover launching in 2020
will also be funded, he added.

Earth science and space weather funding, however, would rise in
2014 in the new budget, with NASA seeking $1.84 billion for Earth
science missions (up from $1.75 billion) to revamp the agency's
long-lived Landsat Earth-monitoring satellite constellation and
develop new climate sensors. The space agency's Heliosphysics
division, which overseas space weather and sun-monitoring
missions, would rise to $653.7 million in 2014, up from $644.9
million last year.

NASA's next major space observatory, the $8.8 billion
James Webb Space Telescope, will continue under the 2014
budget request, receiving about $658.2 million. The observatory
is due to launch in 2018 and serve as the successor to the Hubble
Space Telescope, which will also receive continued funding in the
2014 request.